that would have been unthinkable and would have created riots had anyone tried it in Western Europe
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many people have moved to Russia despite the fact that no one is waiting for them here.
Not from Latvia.
Place where I live feels almost like Russia - you can meet Russians everywhere - they do not want to go to Russia...

yes, many Russian Latvians actually voted for free democratic Latvia
And many received citizneship.
Anyway - I agree that maybe Latvian government should have done something differently back then.
Like giving citizenship to those who voted for Latvian independence.
But you have to understand situation back then.
Occupation army everywhere, huge number of immigrants that do not know Latvian and who voted against independence, Latvians almost minority in their own country (52% in whole country, ~30% in Rīga), KGB/OMON killing people in Lithuania, many more people remembering soviet crimes and atrocities...
And also - Latvians did not want to give power to Russians anymore (nationalism was way more stronger back then).
(Even now many people refer to Soviet period as - "krievu laiki", (Russian times))

But if you look at all these post-Soviet conflicts (Tajikistan, Chechnya, Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh, etc) in 1990s and Yugoslavia - Baltics handled this situation very well.